“It’ll come to you.”
“Gee, I’d never guess you were a psychologist in real life, Sara.”
“Touché.”
“One thing I did know was that I didn’t want company. I was going to do this by myself. I never seriously considered asking anybody to keep me company. It was something to do all by myself.”
“And then Jody showed up.”
“And by then I was ready for company. I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea when he invited himself along, but I figured we could try it out for a day or two and see how it worked. And it worked fine, we hit it off great and his company turned out to be just what I needed.”
“And then Thom and I turned up.”
“And then you two turned up, and who could argue with that? A beautiful blind lady with gray flannel eyes and the power to cloud men’s minds so she cannot see them.”
“That was The Shadow, and I think you got it wrong.”
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. It was pretty obvious that the two of you were sent. I mean, when people are waiting for you on the outskirts of the metropolis of Bend, they must have a hotline to the center of the universe. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there was even a bright star over the Pine Haven Motel.”
“There was a whole sky full of them.”
“I’ll bet. No, it never even occurred to me to wonder whether I wanted the two of you along. You were supposed to be there, no question.” He shrugged. “But I’m not sure I want this to turn into a major group effort.”
“I’m not so sure you have any choice.”
“Really?”
“Really.” She released his hand for a moment, smoothed her forehead with her fingertips. “Thom and I weren’t sent here all the way from what Jody would call Fort Fucking Wayne in order to play four-handed group therapy. And you didn’t walk over the mountains for that, either. A whole lot of people are going to be joining us.”
“What am I, the Pied Piper?”
“Something like that. Not for rats and not for children. A sort of Pied Piper for pilgrims.”
“Pilgrims are supposed to be heading somewhere.”
“But do they necessarily know where?”
“I don’t know. Maybe not. How many people, Sara?”
“I don’t know.”
“A dozen? A hundred? A thousand?”
“I don’t know. A lot of people, Guthrie. I don’t know how many.”
“An army. What are we going to do, hold hands across the country? You remember that circus, with all the press coverage and TV cameras, and when they were all done they raised something like a buck ninety-eight for the homeless of the world?”
“I remember.”
“Is that what this is about? Is it some kind of fucking telethon? Who’s gonna be waiting at the next stop sign, Jerry Lewis?”
“Guthrie?”
“What?”
“Guthrie, why not just take it as it comes?”
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
There was a motel in Brothers, but it was still early when they reached it and they didn’t feel like breaking for the night. They kept going.
Late in the afternoon Sara heard an engine running off to the left and asked what it was. She was walking with Thom, and he told her it was a man on a tractor.
She called to the others. They closed the gap, and she suggested they ask the man on the tractor if they could spend the night on his land.
Jody went over to talk to the farmer. He was a man about fifty, tall and stout, with big jug-handle ears and a bulldog jaw. He wore overalls and a striped blue and white cap that looked like mattress ticking, and he had a little trouble grasping what they wanted. Were they going to put up tents? Would they be building a fire? And where were they headed, anyway? The only city of any size was Burns, and that was eighty-some miles down the road.
Once he got it all straight, he had no objection to helping them out. They could sleep in his barn, he said, as long as he had their word that they’d go out of the barn and stand well away from it if they wanted to smoke.
“It ain’t enough to be careful,” he said. “People are always saying they’ll smoke in the barn but be careful about it, and next thing you know the barn’s burned down, because the only way to be careful about smoking in a barn is not to do it.”
Jody explained that none of their party smoked. The farmer was glad to hear it, but not entirely convinced.
The barn was a massive structure with a hayloft and half a dozen box stalls and milking stanchions for twenty cows. The farmer — his name was Oscar Powers — explained that he kept a small dairy herd, in addition to fattening beef cattle. He also had some acreage in sugar beets and alfalfa.
He showed them where they could sleep and told them to break up a couple bales of hay for their bedding. He was back fifteen minutes later with his arms full of blankets. “My wife said you’d need these,” he said. They thanked him, and ten minutes later he was back again. “My wife said you’re probably hungry, and we’ve got plenty. She said for you to come on up to the house soon as you’re settled, so’s you can wash up before we sit down.”
They ate beef and roasted potatoes and three different vegetables from the kitchen garden. There was a pitcher of fresh milk on the table and big graniteware mugs of coffee served with the meal and replenished throughout. Lindy Powers was a little dumpling of a woman, a soap opera fan and a member of a quilters’ club. She called her husband Ockie and never allowed his plate to be empty.
Two Powers sons were with them at the table; a third boy, older, lived with his wife in Corvallis. “He went to school there,” Powers explained, “and now he has an office job working with computers. I can’t hold it against any boy who doesn’t want to farm these days. I wouldn’t have any other life for myself, but I have to say I wouldn’t wish it on a dog.”
There was pie for dessert, topped with thick cream. Afterward they had hot showers before trooping back to the barn, and in the morning Mrs. Powers sent her youngest boy to the barn with a basket of hot breads and a pot of coffee. The same boy returned as they were getting ready to leave, his father at his side.
“John here has it in mind that he’d like to walk a ways with you,” he said. “If you’ve no objection.”
The boy was nineteen, tall and loose-limbed, with dark home-barbered hair and a tentative expression. He had hardly said a word at dinner.
“I don’t mind him going,” Oscar Powers said. “He’s a help to me but his brother and I can manage. And there’s nothing here for him. Half a year at State was all the college he wanted, and he’s not crazy enough to be a farmer. His mother’s putting clothes in a sack for him, if you don’t mind him going with you.”
Guthrie said, “You want to come with us, John?” The boy nodded, smiling, and Guthrie told him he’d be welcome.
Powers said, “He’s been talking about enlisting in the service. I can’t say I understand what you folks are up to, but I’d sooner trust him to you than to the generals.”
A few miles down the road they stopped at a gas station to top up their canteens and buy snack-packs of cheese and crackers. The attendant, a cheerful young man with freckles and a missing incisor, knew John and asked him what he was up to. When he learned the group was walking east to the Idaho line he thought that was the greatest thing he’d ever heard.
“I never done anything like that,” he said. “I never done anything, really.”
“Come on along,” Jody suggested.
“Aw, now,” he said. “Somebody’s got to run this place. Everybody can’t just do what they want.”
“Why’s that?”
He shrugged and shook his head, still smiling, the tip of his tongue showing where the tooth was missing.